Show up. Make sure you are two steps down from where MLK spoke.
Keep emphasizing personal responsibility to regain lost virtue, kindness, and nobility.
Mention all manners of worthwhile exertion. Repeat. Use different words.
Wait for cheers. Wait for huzzahs. Affirm every quality that no one is really against. Espouse firm-sounding convictions. Wait for sage nodding of heads. Emblazon noble traits on banners, posters. Indicate that the future is tenuous, uncertain, even horrifying. Appeal to future correction based on the sudden awakening of plucky, noble ingenuity of the American. In fact: Git back to being good, America.
To prove that it’s about bein’ good, invite a whole gaggle of pastors and religious leaders. Say that God is all of the answer, but not all of God. Not God’s boy, Heysoos. And not that weird Spirit thinga-ma-Ghost. Just God the distant grandfather who loves Capitalism and early-bird specials. Just Pappy. The one who stays away. Far away. The one who is busy minding his bird-feeder, and washes his antique T-Bird lovingly every week in the driveway. The one who puts it on our shoulders and lets us figger it all out—because he is counting on us to finally see our intrinsic value. The one who sends us positive postcards of encouragement to “do the right thing.”
Gather together religious leaders who want to play in the sandbox of Notoriety. Or just on the stairs of a Memorial. Get all the religious leaders who cannot be troubled with the work of Jesus. Hold a lecture on Moralism 101: Sell personal virtue without having to kill the zombie within. Offer personally achieved goodness. But do not look to Another to do this. Do it your d@mn self. And success will be sure to follow.
I am doing these dishes because it means that I cannot be inconvenienced in any other way. Do not ask me to do anything else; I am doing the dishes, can’t you see? I am doing these dishes because it means that I now have the right to selfishly indulge myself at a later time with uninterrupted “me-time.” It will not matter if that selfishness is counter-productive to family peace or maintenance. Because I earned this window of self-absorbed reclining. The clean kitchen has a value and now you must do something that is equivalent to this value, before I can be energized to do another big service. This clean kitchen means that you cannot gently point out my beastly idols of self. This clean kitchen gives me a self-protective bubble where I cannot be criticized. Doing these dishes means that I must be recognized for it. It means I need a “thank you.” That way it lets me seem magnanimous when I say “No problem; my pleasure.”
I will consult my Order of Pharisees (OOP) manual to see how I can disguise all of these things, instead of crying for real heart change.
Adorable Pharisee: If I play Wii, I will be happy.
Phather: Aren’t you happy now?
Adorable Pharisee: No. I’m only happy when people let me do what I want to do.
Another reason why Jesus and his work enough: my joy is not conditioned upon what other people do or say to me…and I still wish I wasn’t such a Pharisee.
My wife regularly shoots me encouragements from IrishCalvinist (Erik Raymond) Just another guy who has happy-conniption fits over the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In other words, my kind of guy. He recently posted this little gem from D.A. Carson:
I would like to buy about three dollars worth of gospel, please. Not too much—just enough to make me happy, but not so much that I get addicted. I don’t want so much gospel that I learn to really hate covetousness and lust. I certainly don’t want so much that I start to love my enemies, cherish self-denial, and contemplate missionary service in some alien culture. I want ecstasy, not repentance; I want transcendence, not transformation. I would like to be cherished by some nice, forgiving, broad-minded people, but I myself don’t want to love those from different races—especially if they smell. I would like enough gospel to make my family secure and my children well behaved, but not so much that I find my ambitions redirected or my giving too greatly enlarged. I would like about three dollars worth of gospel please.
(D.A. Carson, Basics for Believers, an exposition of Philippians), pp.12-13
So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the issue of homosexuality lately. I’ll explain. Even if one isn’t much of a “thinking” kind of person, you cannot ignore this issue. I’ve heard some say that this is the civil rights issue of our times and I am certainly beginning to believe this. It’s an issue that constantly seems to be fiercely discussed in both the political arena (in places like various state laws either allowing or banning gay marriage) and cultural arena (the steady list of “who’s just come out of the closet” seems to never end) and there is no indicator that this electric ethical issue is even close to subsiding in the public square. Our own Tim Lien informed me yesterday that Jennifer Knapp, a very well-known and accomplished Christian music artist has recently announced that she is in a same-sex relationship that has lasted eight years thus far. As a person who has done major time in the Christian music scene and been to more than one Jennifer Knapp show, I found this particularly interesting (and disappointing). Check out her interview with Larry King on youtube here and hear Jennifer Knapp’s comments and Ted Haggard’s infuriatingly vacuous remarks.
Over the last several weeks I have been discussing our culture and the Bible’s views on homosexuality with our Sr. High students at the church. Through some really good discussion with our church’s kids and reflecting on the issue, it really does become increasingly clear to me that once again, our Reformation heritage is really at the heart of the matter regarding our current cultural controversy over human sexuality. In the midst of the mess of the church in the 16th century, one of the many battle cries of the Reformation was “Sola Scriptura,” or “Scripture alone.” Now what this doesn’t mean (contrary to many) is that everything in the Christian life is all about me and my Bible, that your pastor, your parents, the church, or the last two thousand years of church history have no voice regarding Christian truth. The Reformers never meant to pit every person’s individual interpretation of the Bible against every known authority. However, they did mean to communicate the relationship that the Bible has with every other competing source of truth and authority. As a people who affirm Sola Scriptura, what we’re affirming is that the Bible is the final court of appeals, that we listen to many other voices regarding what is true, but that whatever the Bible says is the final word on every matter in human existence. This means that the Bible is the authority that governs all other sources that influence and affect what we believe, whether that be really smart people with PhD’s or my own personal thoughts and feelings about any particular issue.
What’s really at stake in the debate over homosexuality is this: who is the authority that gets to render the final verdict on human sexuality? Who gets to decide what human sexuality is in its essence, what it should be doing, how it should function, the purpose for which it was created, etc.? In an increasingly relativistic world, the self reigns supreme and people become severely irritated when they are told that an authority higher than themselves dictates all aspects of the purpose and meaning of all human activity. For those outside a Christian standpoint, I’m sure this sounds thoroughly oppressive. But for those of us who look to the Lord of the Universe and submit to his Word, this higher authority is no less than honey for our souls, a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. And as long as we continue to affirm Luther’s words spoken when pressured to deny his teaching on the gospel, “My conscience is held captive to the Word of God,” God’s people must unwaveringly hold to the Bible’s univocal statement on homosexuality, that it is sin and a perversion of the Creator’s blueprint for sexuality.
I also found it fascinating and saddening to hear Jennifer Knapp in her Larry King interview (many others have made the same kind of statements) basically say that the Bible offers a variety of interpretations regarding the issue of homosexuality. This is essentially how she responded when asked the inevitable “Bible question” by Larry King regarding how she understood her views on sexuality and the teaching of the good book. This is a thoroughly post-modern way to interpret things and is very a much a sign-of-the-times regarding the lazy, ambivalent way that many approach biblical interpretation (or any kind of textual interpretation for that matter). When it comes to many sharply debated issues and the Bible, many simply throw up their hands and say with a polite smile, “We’ll, you’ve got your interpretation, I’ve got mine. Why can’t we just agree to disagree?” Several very profound and disturbing things are implied in this kind of approach to how we interpret the Bible. Foremost, this simply assumes that we cannot, in any authoritative way, get to the heart of the meaning of the words that are in the Bible. And no one actually believes this kind of argument if taken to its logical conclusion. At some point, people who still look to the Bible as some kind of guide and also use this kind of argument to oppose the interpretation that the Bible condemns homosexuality will inevitably appeal to something that the Bible teaches in an authoritative way and insist on a particular meaning of a particular passage of Scripture. Plenty of people like Jennifer Knapp who are pro-homosexuality and also claim to be Christians who follow the Bible will at some point insist that the Bible teaches something that we can easily discern and that we should heed to—like God is a God of love, that he offers forgiveness, cares about whether or not people value justice, mercy, etc. But how can we be so sure that the Bible teaches any of these things and yet also at the same time retreat to the interpretive shallow-end of the pool by essentially punting controversial issues in a post-modern fashion and say, “Well, lot’s of people disagree over the issue so therefore you can have your view and I can have mine”? I think I would much rather people just be honest about what they think and say, “I think the Bible is stupid and wrong about much of what it teaches, including homosexuality,” as opposed to hide behind an intellectually lazy post-modern hermeneutic which says that everybody can have their own truth on the issue of what the Bible says regarding homosexuality or try to stand on the biblically flimsy argument that attempts to prove that the Bible never condemns homosexuality outright but only things like homosexual prostitution or sexuality outside of monogamous context (some of the most common ways people circumvent the plain biblical teaching on the issue).
Thoughts?
Postscript: for what’s it’s worth, Tabletalk, the magazine of Ligonier Ministries has some great words regarding a Christian response to homosexuality. Check it out here
If someone were to ask you, “What exactly do you Christians—particularly you people who use the r-word (Reformed) a lot— believe that makes you any different from the other thousands of religions on planet earth?,” what would you say? I came across this while reading Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism recently and thought it was really great. Some quick background: Abraham Kuyper was part of a group of men that led a resurgence of Calvinism in the early 1900’s in the Netherlands. This group of Dutch Calvinist are some of the richest resources that the Reformed Church has in my estimation. Kuyper was certifiably brilliant—he was a theologian, writer and editor of a Dutch newspaper and in his spare time he also founded a university (The Free University of Amsterdam) and was prime minister of the country for several years.
Kuyper answers the question by basically saying that all religions fall into only two categories—religion that exists for the sake of God and religion that exists for the sake of humanity. He writes,
“But whatever may be the various stages in the progress of this egoistic religion [modern religious philosophy], it never overcomes its subjective character, remaining always a religion for the sake of man (his emphasis).”
He then mentions that no matter what form this kind of religion takes, whether religions that plead with nature-gods or the all too human gods of Greek mythology, or even religion that is simply about adoring what is praise-worthy in humanity,
…—in all these different forms it is and remains a religion fostered for man’s sake, aiming at his safety, his liberty, his elevation, and partly also at his triumph over death. And even when a religion of this kind has developed itself into monotheism, the god whom it worships remains invariably a god who exists in order to help man, in order to secure good order and tranquility for the State, to furnish assistance and deliverance in time of need, or to strengthen the nobler and higher impulse of the human heart in its ceaseless struggle with the degrading influences of sin. The consequence of this is that all such religion thrives in time of famine and pestilence, it flourishes among the poor and oppressed, and it expands among the humble and the feeble; but it pines away in the days of prosperity, it fails to attract the well-to-do, it is abandoned by those who are more highly cultured. As soon as the more civilized classes enjoy tranquility and comfort and by the progress of science feel more and more delivered from the pressure of the cosmos, they throw away the crutches of religion, and with a sneer at everything holy go stumbling forward on their own poor legs. This is the fatal end of egoistic religion;—it becomes superfluous and disappears as soon as the egoistic interests are satisfied.
Do you catch what Kuyper is saying here that I think is so profound?? Religion that exists simply to meet the needs of humanity will evaporate once those needs are met. I think this probably explains much of the religious landscape in America and Western Europe, where many have rejected God and any religion once they get some education, income and enough temporal happiness to satisfy most of their immediate needs. Humanity-centered religion simply looks increasingly silly to a people who seem to already have most of their felt-needs filled.
Kuyper goes on to say that the Christian faith, particularly in its expression of Calvinism, stands opposed to all human centered religion and offers the only alternative—religion that exists solely for the glory of the God of the universe. He writes,
Of course, religion, as such does produces also a blessing for man, but it does not exist for the sake of man. It is not God who exists for the sake of His creation;—the creation exists for the sake of God. For, as the Scripture says, He has created all things for Himself.
So I read some great words this week by Carl Trueman on reformation21.org. Trueman is talking about the resurgence of Reformed theology within evangelicalism in the last few years. This kind of thing has even been noted by secular sources such as an article from Time magazine back in the Spring that listed “The New Calvinism” as one of ten ideas that are changing the world. Trueman gives a good critique of this most recent popular revival of Calvinism and mentions that he is concerned with the cult of personality and the potentially misleading views of the church that increasingly seems to accompany such popular movements. Here’s a good sample of what he says:
Finally, I worry that a movement built on megachurches, megaconferences, and megaleaders, does the church a disservice in one very important way that is often missed amid all the pizzazz and excitement: it creates the idea that church life is always going to be big, loud, and exhilarating and thus gives church members and ministerial candidates unrealistic expectations of the normal Christian life. In the real world, many, perhaps most, of us worship and work in churches of 100 people or less; life is not loud and exciting; big things do not happen every Sunday; budgets are incredibly tight and barely provide enough for a pastor’s modest salary; each Lord’s Day we go through the same routines of worship services, of hearing the gospel proclaimed, of taking the Lord’s Supper, of teaching Sunday School; perhaps several times a year we do leaflet drops in the neighbourhood with very few results; at Christmas time we carol sing in the high street and hand out invitations to church and maybe two or three people actually come along as a result; but no matter — we keep going, giving, and praying as we can; we try to be faithful in the little entrusted to us. It’s boring, it’s routine, and it’s the same, year in, year out. Therefore, in a world where excitement, celebrity, and cultural power are the ideal, it is tempting amidst the circumstances of ordinary church life to forget that this, the routine of the ordinary, the boring, the plodding, is actually the norm for church life and has been so throughout most places for most of the history of the church; that mega-whatevers are the exception, not the rule; and that the church has survived throughout the ages not just - or even primarily - because of the high profile firework displays of the great and the good, but because of the day to day faithfulness of the mundane, anonymous, non-descript people who constitute most of the church, and who do the grunt work and the tedious jobs that need to be done. History does not generally record their names; but the likelihood is that you worship in a church which owes everything, humanly speaking, to such people.
In Dorothy Sayer’s essay, “The Dogma is the Drama,” she writes up a theological exam and answers them in perfect parody of a truly ignorant Christian:
Q.: What does the Church think of God the Father?
A.: He is omnipotent and holy. He created the world and imposed on man conditions impossible of fulfillment; He is very angry if these are not carried out. He sometimes interferes by means of arbitrary judgments and miracles, distributed with a good deal of favoritism. He…is always ready to pound on anybody who trips up over a difficulty in the Law, or is having a bit of fun. He is rather like a dictator, only larger and more arbitrary.
Q.: What does the Church think of God the Son?
A.: He is in some way to be identified with Jesus of Nazareth. It is not His
fault that the world was made like this, and, unlike God the Father, he is friendly to man and did His best to reconcile man to God (see Atonement). He has a good deal of influence with God, and if you want anything done, it is best to apply to Him.
Q.: What does the Church think about God the Holy Ghost?
A.: I don’t know exactly. He was never seen or heard of till Pentecost. There
is a sin against Him which damns you forever, but nobody knows what it is.
Q.:What is the doctrine of the Trinity?
A.:“The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the whole thing incomprehensible.” It’s something put in by theologians to make it more difficult – it’s got nothing to do with daily life or ethics.
Q.: What was Jesus Christ like in real life?
A.: He was a good man – so good as to be called the Son of God. He is to be
identified in some way with God the Son (see above). He was meek and mild and preached a simple religion of love and pacifism. He has no sense of humor. Anything in the Bible that suggests another side to His character must be an interpolation, or a paradox invented by G. K. Chesterton. If we try to live like Him, God the Father will let us off being damned hereafter and only have us tortured in this life instead.
Q.: What is meant by the Atonement?
A.: God wanted to damn everybody, but His vindictive sadism was sated by the crucifixion of His own Son, who was quite innocent, and, therefore, a particularly attractive victim. He now only damns people who don’t follow Christ or who never heard of Him.
Q.: What does the Church think of sex?
A.: God made it necessary to the machinery of the world, and tolerates it, provided the parties (a) are married, and (b) get no pleasure out of it.
Q.: What does the Church call Sin?
A.: Sex (otherwise than as excepted above); getting drunk; saying “damn”; murder, and cruelty to dumb animals; not going to church; most kinds of amusements. “Original sin” means that anything we enjoy doing is wrong.
Q.: What is faith?
A.: Resolutely shutting your eyes to scientific fact.
Q.: What is the human intellect?
A.: A barrier to faith.
Q.: What are the seven Christian virtues?
A.: Respectability; childishness; mental timidity; dullness; sentimentality; censoriousness; and depression of spirits.
Q.: Wilt thou be baptized in this faith?
A.: No fear!
Comment: Yes, it’s funny. But also not funny. I gave a friend my season box sets of The Office for his viewing pleasure. He gave them back to me within a week. “Did you like it?” I asked, hoping we would go five minutes repeating lines and revelling in Dwight. “Uh, not really,” he said, “it was a little too close to reality.” Oh…..OH…I really am sorry. Maybe Sayers’ “answers” are a little too close to reality.
Since the Census Bureau does not cover religious affiliation questions, the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) has attempted to identify the various religious rumblings of America. They release its newest findings today. It’s still a survey, but some of the general trends are a fascinating look at American faith. The USA Today article opens this way:
When it comes to religion, the USA is now land of the freelancers.
The percentage. of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation. The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist. The Rust Belt is less Catholic. And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers — or falling off the faith map completely.
Some other interesting quotes from the article:
“More than ever before, people are just making up their own stories of who they are. They say, ‘I’m everything. I’m nothing. I believe in myself,’ ” says Barry Kosmin, survey co-author.
and:
Kosmin concluded from the 1990 data that many saw God as a “personal hobby,” and that the USA is “a greenhouse for spiritual sprouts.”
Today, he says, “religion has become more like a fashion statement, not a deep personal commitment for many.”
Without ascibing to a core set of beliefs (read: creedal or confessional bounds) the American Christian principally believes what they want to believe. Choosing various denominations and stripes of Christianity really comes down to your personal preference or style. You simply do not have to appeal to any other authroity to justify your choice.
Question: If you read the article, where would you place the PCA in the survey’s categories? Read the fine print following the article re: Generic Christian and other Protestant Denominations (besides mainlines). It seems we hardly fit in identifying with the others in their survey. Uh oh.
This past Sunday evening, Tim gave an excellent presentation on Christianity and Patriotism, as part of our continuing “What We Believe” series. For those who missed it, I think that I can summarize the central thesis of his presentation as follows: the USA (or any country, for that matter) is not the Church, and the Church is not the USA. Therefore, any ascribing of the traits, expectations, privileges, or functions of one to the other (especially the Church’s to the state) is bound to lead to error, disappointment, and conflict.
I wholeheartedly agree with Tim. T.D. Jakes, on the other hand, apparently does not.
I ran across this article this morning describing an address (sermon?) Jakes gave at one of today’s inaugural festivities. The text Jakes cited was Daniel 3:19:
Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude toward them changed. He ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual
This is a part of the familiar story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego being thrown into the fiery furnace and being miraculously unharmed, contained in the entirety of Daniel 3. Whether the entire context was provided to the listeners, I don’t know. I’ll charitably assume that it was.
Here are the four points Jakes made, again as reported by CNN:
Jakes read from Daniel 3:19 and used the scripture to offer PEOTUS a series of four lessons for his administration.
1 – “In time of crisis, good men must stand up. God always sends the best men into the worst times.”
2 – “You cannot change what you will not confront. This is a moment of confrontation in this country. There’s no way around it…This is not a time for politeness or correctness, this is a time for people to confront issues and bring about change.”
3 – “You cannot enjoy the light without enduring the heat. The reality is the more brilliant, the more glorious, the more essential the light, the more intense the heat. We cannot separate one from the other.”
4 – “Extraordinary times require extraordinary methods. This is a historical moment for us and our nation and our country, and though we enjoy it and are inspired by it and motivated by it.”
Now, Jakes has made the exact error that Tim argued against on Sunday. Clearly, Jakes is equating Obama to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. That comparison only works if it is logical and biblically correct that the United States is positioned the same as the ancient exiles from Judah. Judah and Israel were the people of God at that time and (with a few individuals along the way maybe) they were it. No other nation worshiped the true God. Believers in God were synonymous with a race of men. That is clearly no longer the case. The Word has now gone out to the Gentiles and, except for God’s remnant, the Jews have rejected the messiah. No single country on earth can lay claim to being God’s nation in the same manner as the ancient Israelites could.
Jakes makes other errors, too. The notion of God sending the “best men” into the worst situations is a joke. Like David, the adulterer and murderer? Like Jesus calling fishermen to be his disciples? Come on. Even if you don’t believe in depravity like we reformed types do, this one is not even close.
And how about those “extraordinary methods” that Jakes says are called for? Is Obama to call down a miracle like the men in the furnace did?
Eventually, we all know, that any man is going to disappoint you, because we’re all fallen. I think Ronald Reagan is one of the greatest presidents we’ve had, but I can rattle off many things he did that were disappointments. Even supporters of Obama’s are going to learn sooner or later that (contrary to what you’ll hear in the press today) he does make mistakes, and he doesn’t work miracles. What will then be the response of the likes of Bishop Jakes? Will God have failed? Did he not send the “best” after all? Such rhetoric is bound to lead to disillusionment in the public and such confused theology to error in the church.
And besides all that, if you aren’t convinced by anything I’ve written so far, maybe this will get your attention. At the end of his speech, Jakes said:
“I say to you [Obama] as my son who is here today, my 14-year-old son – he probably would not quote scripture. He probably would use Star Trek instead, and so I say, ‘May the force be with you.”
Star Trek? Yeesh, that’s Star Wars. He can’t get his theology OR his science fiction straight.
Newsweek - Newsweek!- has decided to give the great unwashed masses a lesson in what the Bible says about marriage - gay marriage in particular. Guess what? According to them, the Bible is actually supportive of gay marriage.
I am not making this up. It’s the cover story. Read it all here.
I do not intend to waste time and pixels deconstructing this whole piece of junk. Their arguments are completely fallacious, citing passages that deal contextually with other matters for support and twisting or ignoring passages that are obviously on point to suit their agenda. For example, consider Paul’s writing on the subject of same-sex relations in Romans 1:
In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
The author’s take on this:
Paul was tough on homosexuality, though recently progressive scholars have argued that his condemnation of men who “were inflamed with lust for one another” (which he calls “a perversion”) is really a critique of the worst kind of wickedness: self-delusion, violence, promiscuity and debauchery. In his book “The Arrogance of Nations,” the scholar Neil Elliott argues that Paul is referring in this famous passage to the depravity of the Roman emperors, the craven habits of Nero and Caligula, a reference his audience would have grasped instantly. “Paul is not talking about what we call homosexuality at all,” Elliott says. “He’s talking about a certain group of people who have done everything in this list. We’re not dealing with anything like gay love or gay marriage. We’re talking about really, really violent people who meet their end and are judged by God.”
Got that? “Abandon[ing] natural relations with women” and being “inflamed with lust” for men is clearly all about violence and hatred. This is ridiculous even by Newsweek standards, and that’s saying a lot.
Why do you suppose Newsweek would bother to run this story? I have a theory. They obviously could give a whit less about proper theology. What they do care very deeply about is liberal politics. You see, a funny thing happened last month on the way to Barack Obama’s election: California passed Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage in California by state constitutional amendment - i.e., for real.
Libs like the Newsweek crowd were aghast that the state’s voters, while voting for Obama, could do something as retrograde as vote against gay marriage. The irony here is that Obama turned out heavy minority support in California, particularly among black and Latino voters, who are predominantly religious and culturally conservative. While at the box voting for Obama, they voted down gay marriage.
So, Newsweek feels the need to correct the backwoods religious teaching that these folks are getting in church and tell them what the Bible REALLY says about gay marriage. After all, what are you going to believe, what you hear in church and read with your own eyes in the Bible, or what your theological superiors at Newsweek tell you?
So I was just reading a review by Carl Trueman, a British church history prof. at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. (read anything you can get your hands on by Carl Trueman. He’s a lot of fun to read due to his brilliance, clarity and characteristic British wit that drips sarcasm). Trueman wrote a great review of Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism (a book I’ve been told that is on the future reading list for Riverwood’s book group). Check out the entire article here: http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/33-2/minority-report-the-second-most-important-book-you-will-ever-read.
I love reading about Machen because I always find the issues Machen fought back in the 20’s and 30’s to still be alive and well in the church today. There truly is nothing new under the sun. For clarity’s sake, Gresham Machen was a seminary professor at Princeton and eventually left the school because of its drifting towards theological liberalism and founded Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. Machen is also important for us PCA folk because he foreshadowed and was a forerunner in many of the battles that southern presbyterians fought later in the 60’s and 70’s that would eventually lead to the formation of the PCA. Machen essentially attempted to reform the mainline northern Presbyterian church and was actually deposed as a minister for his efforts and then would later create the OPC (Orthodox Presbyterian Church), a conservative Presbyterian denomination very similar to our own.
Anyway, many viewed Machen’s brand of orthodoxy as contentious and exclusive. Machen and many others would contend that the confessional orthodoxy he was advocating was none other than the doctrines that Protestants had traditionally held for centuries, doctrines that are organically connected to the teachings of the Bible. Check out Trueman’s words concerning Machen’s “contentious orthodoxy,” his words are worth considering and quoting at length:
In an age like ours, of course, where fuzzy boundaries, vagueness, doubt, and caution are supreme virtues, Machen’s thesis is likely to appear both arrogant and overstated. But, as Machen himself says in the opening paragraphs, “In the sphere of religion, as in other spheres, the things about which men are agreed are apt to be the things that are least worth holding; the really important things are the things about which men will fight.” There is insight here. Before we see Machen as too intolerant, too much a man of a bygone age, let us reflect on the fact that we live in an age that is remarkably certain and intolerant on a whole host of fronts, from racism to poverty to cruelty against animals to homophobia. Regardless of where we come down on each of these issues, very few of us will be indifferent on them, or particularly laissez-faire towards those with whom we disagree on these matters.
Thus, it is not really that Machen is a man of a bygone, intolerant age which makes this little book so offensive to modern ears. We should not flatter our own enlightened times so easily, for it is not the reality of intolerance in itself that has changed. Rather, it is that we now have a different set of issues that arouse intolerance, and this change reflects not only shifting values in society but also in the church, to the extent that she no longer stands intolerantly for her truth as she once did. The question is thus not whether we are intolerant: we surely are. The question is rather: Are we intolerant of the right things? As the value of religious truth has become negligible, so the passions aroused by such in the wider world have died down. That we do not fight over these things is not a virtue; it is rather be a sign that we just do not care about them any more, and that is the result of the downgrading of the Bible in our thinking. We no longer look on it as a book of divine truth and thus of almost unbearable importance; it is now a ragbag of disparate religious reflections, or a collection of texts reflecting on religious psychology, or simply a cacophony of ancient near-eastern tribal mythology.
I really resonated with Trueman’s words here, especially what he says about the fact that we live in age that is just as intolerant as any other and that the issue is not whether we are intolerant, but what are the issues that arouse such strong opinions and reactions in us. What are the issues that we feel are worth being intolerant over? Football team loyalties? Economic bailout plans? Presidential politics?
Thoughts?
For the next 4 weeks (5 weeks, including last week, Sept. 15 - Oct. 17) Common Grounds Online will be hosting an online forum discussing the turmoil and theological trajectories in the PCA.
Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, John Frame, Reggie Kidd and sixteen other church leaders will be participating.
I am more than a little partial to the younger set, but I think it would be worthwhile to examine where the rifts are becoming wider and where bridges need to be mended or rebuilt. I will also shamelessly plug my friend Glen Lucke’s new book that covers the outline of these discussions. Amazon link, here.
1) John Piper’s Desiring God Ministry is hosting a conference September 26-28. This year’s theme is “The Power of Words and the Wonder of God.” Among the scheduled speakers there are: Sinclair Ferguson, Mark Driscoll, Paul Tripp, and of course, John Piper. There have been two promotional videos on YouTube that have created quite a stir.
This one:
And this one:
Keep in mind that Ferguson, Piper, Tripp, and Driscoll are Reformed believers. Ferguson and Tripp are both PCA ministers.
2) Seattle resident, Seth McBee, (loyal Riverwood podcast listener) hosts the blog site Contend Earnestly. Recently, he has been under fire for his position that there is an appropriate time to use “inelegant” words (Dorothy Sayers) for the glory of God. He would like to hear some other Reformed believers weigh in. So, let’s open up the opinion banks and begin a hearty discussion…
Everyone who’s even a casual reader of this blog knows how much I love watching political drama. This, however, is going completely off the rails. I know nothing of Rep. Cohen, whether he claims to be a Christian or not. If he does, then he is in serious need of rebuke about who Jesus is and what he was on this earth to do. It wasn’t “community organizing.” Suggesting such (on the floor of the House of Representatives, no less) either demonstrates shocking levels of ignorance or the cynical manipulation of his own religion for political gains.
If he’s not a Christian, then he’s the dumbest politician EVER (and that’s a prize for which there are many competitors). How many Christians will be offended by this? How many ordinary folks (especially women) who are not rabid partisans will be put off (or insulted) at Gov. Palin being likened to Pontius Pilate? Comparing your party’s candidate to Jesus? And the opposing Veep is Pilate? Disrespecting the religion of the overwhelming majority of people in this country is idiotic.
First off, I should say that I agree wholeheartedly with Jimmy’s earlier thoughts on the meaning of being an “Evangelical” in politics today. It is true, however, that (for lack of a better term) orthodox Christians do tend to rather overwhelmingly support the Republicans. Much ink and many pixels have been spilled over why this is. I think I can answer without reference to the endorsements of Hagee or Dobson or any other “Evangelical” power broker.
Perusing National Review’s blog The Corner today, I found a link to an interview with Obama done by the Chicago Sun Times religion reporter back in 2004. Though I commend the entire thing to everyone’s reading, let’s get right to the money quote:
GG: Do you believe in sin?
OBAMA: Yes.
GG: What is sin?
OBAMA: Being out of alignment with my values.
GG: What happens if you have sin in your life?
OBAMA: I think it’s the same thing as the question about heaven. In the same way that if I’m true to myself and my faith that that is its own reward, when I’m not true to it, it’s its own punishment.
Now, let that sink in for a minute. Sin is being out of alignment with one’s own values. In other words, whatever it is that you set as your values, if you aren’t living up to those self-set standards, then and only then are you in sin. Not exactly the same standard set forth by Jesus: “You therefore must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”
Obama’s definition is post-modern relativism dressed up in Christian clothes.
Now, is there really any mystery why those voters who are traditional Christians generally won’t vote for Obama? He claims to be something that they (rightly) do not recognize. Moreover, it displays that Obama has a worldview where there is no absolute right and wrong.
Leaving politics aside for a moment, though, and more importantly anyway, if anyone truly believes such relativistic mush, why on earth bother to join a church? Why do you need that? In fact, you don’t need anybody but yourself. Just set your standards low enough, and you’ll have no problems.
Today is my last day of vacation at the beach. Yesterday afternoon I was sitting on the balcony at sunset and watching the waves crash in on the shore and I began to contemplate how beautiful God’s creation is.
Jeff Miller frequently talks about human creativity as being one of those ways in which we’re made in God’s image, which is all very true. But, as I continued to think about God and creativity there on the balcony, it occurred to me that we humans don’t really grasp the immensity and consequences of God’s creativity very much. And I think it’s because we can’t really imagine the nothingness out of which God created all that we see.
For example, most all of us can look at a beach and marvel that God would create something so beautiful. But it goes so much deeper than that. There was no rule book that said that God had to use water in his earth. He simply decided to do so. There was nothing that required God to separate night from day, and to put a light in each. (The full moon over the water has been absolutely stunning this week.) Neither was there anything that said that God had to make the waves move, that there had to be dry land, sand, etc., etc. etc. All of these beautiful things that I’ve been enjoying this week are purely the product of God’s creativity. Isn’t the idea that God could come up with the physical world in which we live mind-boggling?
After considering that, what we refer to as God’s “common grace” - the sun shining and the rain falling on the good and the wicked - doesn’t really seem so common, does it?
Please don’t ask me why, but I was flipping through AM radio stations the other day and I stumbled across a gospel radio station. At that particular point, a song by the Canton Spirituals was playing (no, I didn’t know that – I had to google it), and the lyrics that caught my attention went as follows: “I’ve got to clean up what I’ve messed up. I’ve started my life over again. I’ve made up my mind I aint lying no more.”
Why, you might ask, did that catch my attention? As unpleasant as the song was to listen to, the lyrics totally described how I have lived much of my life. I’ve tried to clean up many things that I’ve messed up. I’ve started my life over again…and again…and again. And I’ve made up my mind, many times, that I aint (fill in the blank) no more. And I’ve failed miserably each time. Each time I have thought if I pray more, read more, memorize more, become more disciplined or more accountable I will finally be able to succeed. I bet you can guess the result.
I am very slowly starting to learn that my ugliness is much more messed up than I have ever realized. And hand in hand with that reality is, because of God’s grace, I can’t clean it up. I really do need the gospel. Apart from Christ’s work I am a cynical, frustrated, hardened failure.
In Wausau, Wisconsin last week, 3 siblings were removed from their parents after their 11 yr. old sister died of an undiagnosed (yet fully treatable ) form of diabetes. The parents believed that healing comes exclusively from God. The removal has only occured for the duration of the upcoming investigation. Officials believe at the outset that there is little evidence that shows intentional wrongdoing.
The family believes in the Bible, which says healing comes from God, Leilani Neumann said.
“There is no intent. They didn’t want their child to die. They thought what they were doing was the right thing,” he said. “They believed up to the time she stopped breathing she was going to get better. They just thought it was a spiritual attack. They believed if they prayed enough she would get through it.”
In a similar case: When I was young there was a family in our church that refused to buy life insurance, as they felt it was not properly trusting God to do so. The story does not have a happy ending. The dad died prematurely in an accident.
Recently, a church leader in Birmingham said that young PCA guys were a bunch of “iconoclasts”— always wanting to smash down all kinds of idols— be they traditionally venerated or obvious. Ok, I admit, I fit the description.
In reflection upon that this morning, I stumbled across this thought:
What do I run to when I am openly rebelling against God?
Answer: An obvious idol that should give me great pause.
But the next question reveals something justas insidious:
What do I run to when I want to feel close to God, again?
Answer: A not-so-obvious idol, but an idol nonetheless, if it is anything less than Christ.
Most of you have seen the “Motivational” posters that have “inspirational” pictures with an ironic meassage below them. For example, one I saw recently with a baton being passed in a race had the title BLAME, and the message, “Success is usually knowing who to blame.” The company that makes them is Despair.com and they are really quite funny.
I recently saw a poster of that type that is funny, but unlike some of the others, is as true as anything you may ever see, especially within the general context of Southern evangelical religion. In fact, I may print a copy of it to help myself stay straight.
Like Geraldo, I will make marks in the sand to let you know where I am for the pastor’s conference. I can put it in a way only Tuscaloosans can understand: Auburn Avenue and Monroe Louisiana. Both of those references sting a bit for the UA faithful. Here’s a great quote from one of Douglas Wilson’s talks:
“One of the greatestest miracles that Jesus ever did was listen to his disciples talk about theology without punching them.”
This conference is excellent; it is entitled “Liturgy and Life.” And it’s even better than it sounds.
The Riverwood Book Group recently completed Graham Greene’s novel of love in wartime London, The End of the Affair. Greene was Catholic, and his “serious” novels deals with the moral ambiguities of life as seen from a Christian perspective but without glib answers. This aspect is very visible in The End of the Affair, in fact, Christian choices are the theme and essence of the book.
So that I won’t be a “spoiler,” since I know some members of Riverwood who want to read this book, I’ll quote this passage without much accompanting information about character, plot, etc. It is from a letter one character writes to another and it speaks of conversion:
What’s the use? I believe there’s a God—I believe the whole bag of tricks, there’s nothing I don’t believe. They could subdivide the Trinty into a dozen parts and I’d believe. They could dig up reconds that proved Christ had been invented by Pilate to get himself promoted and I’d believe just the same. I’ve caught belief like a disease. I’ve fallen into belief like I fell in love. I’ve never loved before as I love you and I’ve never believed before as I believe now.
As we considered this passage, it was said that it spoke strongly of both election and irresistible grace, a very “reformed” position from a practicing Catholic. Or, to put it another way, Truth is Truth.
Last Tuesday I had the pleasure of giving the morning devotional to the Riverwood Classical School and, using the week’s Catechism question as a guide, talked about the Fall of man. Afterward, I was thinking about the Fall in light of a book I was reading the previous week. It was the second volume in Rick Atkinson’s trilogy about the American army in Europe in WWII, The Day of Battle and it focused on the Sicilian and Italian campaigns in 1943-44. As a result of this juxtaposition of book and devotional; it crossed my mind how inadequate, although totally valid, my illustrations of obedience to parents, etc. from the devotional were to the idea of fallen man and the truth of how far man fell from Grace. I suppose, in a sense, war is the ultimate example and result of fallenness.
To define the situation, it was determined to invade Sicily after the victory at El Alamein had driven the Germans from Africa. The Sicilian invasion was bloody but relatively quick and the British and American armies invaded Italy at Salerno, and began fighting an entrenched, well trained, disciplined, ruthless and barbaric army . This was the war of Ernie Pyle, the brilliant journalist who brought the war to life for millions and Bill Mauldin, the cartoonist whose creations, “Willie and Joe” became synonomous with the “GI,” the American soldier. The way north bogged down at Cassino after a disasterous attempt to attack accross the Rapido River on the German Gustav line. Winter came and the misery increased (I discovered that Rome is the same latitude as Chicago) as did the savagery. There was an invasion at Anzio to attempt to break the stalement but this bogged down also scant miles from the beach at the Pontine marshes. The two armies settled in to killing each other and the civilians who happened to be unlucky enough to be in the villages that sheltered the armies. The Americans that survived became what they were intended to become; instinctive killers forged by survival instincts developed under inhumane conditions. The Germans had long since reached this point.
The stalemate was eventually broken by the “weight of metal” thrown at the German lines as more and more bombs and weaponry, and men, became available to the allies. 750 tons of bombs and 200,000 artillery shells were dropped on the village of Cassino in six hours before the final assualt. Entire villages were reduced to rubble and when the Germans evacuated Naples, they destroyed infrastructure and booby trapped public buildings to explode after the Allied armies arrived. Many of the treasures of history and antiquity were destroyed by the fighting.
Rome was taken June 5, 1944, one day before the Normandy invasion. The Italian campaign had cost 312,000 Allied casulties and 435,000 German casualities. You would have to read the account to understand the barbarism and horror as these men (and civilians) faced the unleashing of modern weapons of war. Some of the scenes Atkinson described were simply painful to read.
So this too was the fallen world, inexplicable in its total fallenness, at least to a class of lovely and fresh faced children in the Riverwood Classical School. But it is not unexplainable because the root cause of the disobedience of children and war are identical. May these children never have to face war to this degree, but they, as do all men and women, will face the reality of their own sin and fallenness.
But we do not demand that they trust in “living in this certain way” for their justification. We demand the opposite. We require them to not trust in what they are doing, and we also teach them not to trust in what they are saying. We teach them to trust in Christ, not to trust in themselves trusting in Christ. We do call upon them to confess their faith in Jesus alone. This is what we teach them to do, and it is how we lead them. What we do not do is tell them that their salvation hinges on whether they say the magic words just right, or have their face looking “just so” while they say it. We don’t tell them that they are apostate if they get some detail about justification wrong. To do so would be for us to deny sola fide.
In an upcoming Salt and Light article, I will be addressing the issue of how we as Reformed and Presbyterian Christians should interact with the wider Christian world. Reformed Christians in America have an upleasant history infighting and sectarianism (see Machen’s Warrior Children). In my view, whatever one thinks about the Federal Vision in all its particulars, a consistent and positive thrust of the movement has been the willingness to interact with those outside the relatively small Reformed world, and even smaller world of the Presbyterian Church in America. Presbyterian minister Doug Wilson made these instructive comments recently:
When C.S. Lewis wrote of mere Christianity, he used the image of the hallways of a great house. He emphasized that it was in the rooms that one slept, took one’s meals, visited with family and friends, and so on. All the action took place in the rooms — and that is where my Reformed identity resides. That’s where I keep my books, and my slippers, and my laptop. But it is possible (and desirable) to go out into the hallway from time to time and fellowship with the other residents of this great house. I can do that without forgetting where my bed is, and without trying to get all the Christians to sleep in the hallways.
When a particular tradition becomes in-grown it is easy to think that “this room” is the only room where anything worthwhile is going on. One of points of FV catholicity is that we don’t think this is true — God is doing wonderful things in other parts of the house. This has been taken (and ought not to have been taken) as us expressing a desire to move out of our Reformed library with its fat books and burnished leather chairs, and tobacco, and Drambuie on the rocks, and carpet you could lose a shoe in. So don’t get me wrong. I like it here and have no intention of moving out — although I still reserve the right to get chased out.
But I can still be grateful for those Campus Crusade guys staffing the mud room, getting new people into the house, and making it possible for them to eventually make their way to the library.
The context may be found here. Healthy ecumenism is not coming together to feel good about coming together. Healthy ecumenism is coming together around the truth of the gospel that has been believed by all Christians everywhere at all times.
Like Wilson, I like our room. When my friends in the room lock the door, however, and tell me I can’t take a stroll down the hall to borrow a book from another room, or perhaps borrow an insight from another room, I think we are dealing with an incredibly historical naivety and ridiculous insularity. Let’s continue to decorate the room and invite others in, but for the love of all that’s good, let’s keep the door open.
“Tim, why do preach pain so much? Tim, why do your sermons seem so heavy on suffering?”
An email has lingered in my inbox for quite some time, containing a link to John Piper preaching in Birmingham. How does the Reformed Gospel differ from Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Paul Crouch, Joel Osteen, Robert Tilton and every other charletan shyster? Listen to this. (It is precisely 3 minutes long.)
At the risk of seeming obsessed with this topic, I just had to post this, for two reasons, really. First, it’s a defeat for prohibitionism, which I say is a good thing. Second, it’s too shining an example of works theology to leave alone.
On Tuesday of this week, the good folks in Athens, Alabama, held a referendum on whether to return the city to prohibition. Three or four years ago, Athens voted to go “wet.” Evidently, the “dry” forces got enough support to put the measure on the ballot again, hoping to undo the last vote.
The AP ran a story on this. You can read it here. It would seem that some of the local churches were behind the “dry” campaign. Get this:
The Rev. Eddie Gooch feels good about the chances of ending alcohol sales in Athens, but he isn’t taking any chances. A leader of the petition drive, Gooch urged members of his United Methodist Church to pray and fast on election day and the two days leading up to it. Church volunteers have sent thousands of letters and made phone calls encouraging people to vote “dry.”
Of all the things that a church could spend three days praying and fasting about! Reckon there’s been such prayer and fasting for the soldiers dying overseas or their families? How about the miners out in Utah who (apparently) died in the cave-in and their families? How about their fellow Christians in Sudan being murdered and enslaved by the Muslims? The persecution of Christians in China? Maybe they did, but somehow, I doubt it.
Confronted with the possible loss of an upscale restaurant that moved to Athens from a neighboring dry city so that they could sell alcohol, and the loss of tax revenue:
Gooch isn’t worried about the city losing businesses or tax revenues if alcohol sales are banned. Normal economic growth and God will make up any difference if residents dump the bottle, he said. “We believe that God will honor and bless our city,” Gooch said.
If there was ever a better example of viewing God as a vending machine, I’d like to see it. This would be bad theology even if the activity being shunned was sinful. Rev. Gooch seems to think that if we behave, God will respond by bestowing blessing. I’d like to see Rev. Gooch explain Job’s plight in light of Job 1:1:
In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.
Now see, since Job was upright and shunned evil (I’m sure, in Rev. Gooch’s world, Job would have voted dry), Rev. Gooch might expect Job to have been “honor[ed] and bless[ed]” by God. Yet it didn’t quite work out that way, did it?
I might add that several astute commenters on the AP story linked above also noted more than a bit of hypocrisy on the church’s part, citing Jesus turning the water to wine and the use of wine in the last supper.
Now, unlike my previous Carrie Nation posts, this one has an ending a bit more to my liking. Carrie went down at the ballot box in Athens, 68/32. So that’s good news.
However, I think the high profile of the churches involved here and the religious overtones they brought to this political matter has done much to reinforce the stereotype of hypocritical Christianity. Here’s commenter GunOwnerDan:
Why are so many “crhistians” [sic] such total hypocrites? Jesus, their “lord and savior” was a wine-maker. According to the Bible, Jesus actually turned water into WINE!
Dan doesn’t seem like a believer, but it’s hard to fault his analysis.
So one step forward on the political side, but two steps back for the church.
I have had our Pastor’s sermon last Sunday on death and resurrection for the Christian very much on my mind. I tend to think about death more (I am almost 70!) but I’m not sure that’s the real reason. Its inevitability is such a part of life and you consciously avoid it for much of your life so at some point, you intellectually almost have to consider it. Anyway, Tim’s great sermon was based on 1st. Thessalonians 4:13 and following and spoke of how the Christian was not to be ignorant of what would happen but was to understand and be comforted and encouraged.
As sometimes happens, I was reading a book about death in its human ramifications and a particular passage spoke to the idea of the non-believer as he looks at the existence of God in the face of human death. The book is A Death in the Family by James Agee. It is a deeply moving novel about a family in Knoxville, TN in which the husband and father of two small children is killed in an automobile accident in 1915. I want to quote a portion of it but I’ll have to set the scene so bear with me.
In this scene, the wife’s family is gathered at her house after the news came. There are several members of the family there but the ones who speak in this scene are as follows: the wife is Mary, known as “Poll” to her father, Joel. Her aunt, Hannah, is there and she is Joel’s sister. Mary and Hannah are devout Catholic Christians. Joel is an agnostic. It is very late, around three AM. As this conversation begins, the Christians in the room have just had a very strong premonition that the husband’s spirit was there for a few minutes. All had the premonition seperately, without telling each other. Even Mary’s mother, who is almost deaf, felt it. They have investigated and now it has passed and they are speaking of the premonition and the supernatural:
Again they were thoughfully silent, and into this silence Joel spoke quietly, “I…don’t….know. I….just….don’t….know. Every bit of gumption I’ve got tells me it’s impossible, but if this kind of thing is so, it isn’t with gumption that you see it is. I….just….don’t….know. If you’re right, and I’m wrong, then chances are you’re right about the whole business, God, and the whole crew. And in that case, I’m just a plain damned fool. But if I can’t trust my common sense—I know it’s nothing much, Poll, but it’s all I’ve got. If I can’t trust that, what in hell can I trust! God, you’n Hannnah would say. Far as I’m concerned, it’s out of the question.”
“Why, Joel?” Hannah asked.
“II doesn’t seem to embarrass your idea of common sense, or Poll’s, and for that matter I’m making no reflections. You’re got plenty of gumption. But how can you reconcile the two, I can’t see.”
“It takes faith, Papa,” Mary said gently.
“That’s the word. That’s the one that makes a mess of everything, for’s I’m concerned. Bounces up like a jack-in-the-box. Solves everything. Well, it doesn’t solve anything for me, for I haven’t got any.Wouldn’t hurt it if I had. Don’t believe in it.. Not for me. I’m not exactly an atheist, you know. Least I don’t suppose I am. Seems as unfounded to me to say there isn’t a God as to say there is. You can’t prove it either way. But that’s it: I’ve got to have proof. All I can say is, I hope you’re wrong but I just don’t know.”
Joel can go to no door in Knoxville and knock and God will come out to meet him, giving him the “proof” that he thinks he needs and in that sense, we are bound by faith. But it is not a faith that is without reason. Paul wrote the words to the Thessalonians knowing, as an eyewitness and knowing hundreds of other eyewitnesses that Jesus had been crucified and was resurrected. Paul, and thousands of others gave up everything; even to dying a terrible death, because they knew the truth. Paul’s writings, and the Gospels, are historical documents, written by men who would have found it much easier to deny and walk around in a fog about the whole matter. The existence of God can’t be proven empirically, but our faith isn’t a jack-in-a-box that we pop up when the questions get hard either. Joel’s “I hope it isn’t true” is one of the saddest statements a man can make.
Which brings me back to the Christian and death. He knows it is all true and as Tim preached so wonderfully and so fervantly last Snday; because it is true, nothing else matters. Death doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter even a little bit, neither the dying nor the state of death, not as much as my Mother would have said, “a hill of beans.” To the Christian, secure and triumphant in the resurrection of our Lord, He is all that matters. Deaths in our family, the family of God, are vastly different from other deaths.
Anybody casually reading my writing on this blog might really think that I have it in for the Episcopal Church USA. I really don’t, but they do seem to be a perfect example of where liberal mainline Christianity is off the tracks. But today’s installment shows that they are not only off the track, but the train has plunged off the cliff, exploded, and the wreckage is smoldering.
Now, some of you, no matter how well you know me and trust me, will nevertheless have to click the link to be sure that I’m not making up something this completely ridiculous. That’s okay, though, because when my friend Herb Saunders [hat tip] sent this to me, as much as I trust Herb, I had to read it for myself to believe it.
Here goes: an Episcopal priest of some 20 years, Rev. Ann Holmes Redding, has become a muslim - but without leaving the priesthood or the church. She’s claims to be BOTH a Christian and a muslim. You can read the whole story here.
There’s so much to write about, one hardly knows where to begin. I’ll start by commending Kurt Fredrickson of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, whom the articles quotes, for asking the blazingly obvious question that seems to not bother Rev. Redding:
“There are tenets of the faiths that are very, very different,” said Kurt Fredrickson, director of the doctor of ministry program at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. “The most basic would be: What do you do with Jesus?”
Indeed. What do you do with Jesus? Rev. Redding’s answer is the most wonderful illustration of the absolute intellectual bankruptcy of postmodern relativism:
Redding doesn’t feel she has to resolve all the contradictions. People within one religion can’t even agree on all the details, she said. “So why would I spend time to try to reconcile all of Christian belief with all of Islam?
“At the most basic level, I understand the two religions to be compatible. That’s all I need.”
…
“It wasn’t about intellect,” she said. “All I know is the calling of my heart to Islam was very much something about my identity and who I am supposed to be.
Isn’t it wonderful how relativism makes virtue of intellectual laziness?
And, lest you wonder about the ECUSA’s position on all this, when asked, they said that it was up to her bishop, who opined as follows:
Redding’s bishop, the Rt. Rev. Vincent Warner, says he accepts Redding as an Episcopal priest and a Muslim, and that he finds the interfaith possibilities exciting.
So, there you have it. It’s “exciting” to the powers that be in the ECUSA.
It is absolutely no wonder that the African branches of the Anglican Communion consider the US to be apostate and in need of conversion. I suggest they get a missionary out to Seattle ASAP.
The Cross intersects the past, present, and future. The finished work of Christ in the past is the basis for our present justification, anticipating God’s ultimate verdict in the future that we are indeed righteous. In a similar way, the cross stretches us from the past to the present to the future in the way we conceive the Church. We hold fast to the traditions passed down to us, but we also stand ready to engage the future.
Peter Leithart has some helpful comments in this regard:
According to Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy’s cross of reality, individuals are always stretched out on a cross, in four directions - to the past and to the future, to the inside and to the outside. Growth and maturity come when we endure the cross in faith that when we are torn to pieces we will yet be revived, that our death on the cross of reality is the gateway to life. Like Jesus, we are glorified through the cross.
Churches are also on the cross.
Churches are called to remain faithful to the past while also boldly embracing the novelty of the future; called to cultivate a distinctive language and culture inside the community, while also listening attentively to voices from outside.
Life would be much easier if we could ignore one or the other poles of the cross. Life would be much easier if we could retreat to a pure inside and ignore the outside; life would be much easier if we could rest in the securities of the past rather than face the uncertainties of the future.
This week the PCA (our denomination) will meet for its annual General Assembly. Each year Ruling Elders and Teaching Elders from our churches congregate to discuss and deliberate various theological, cultural, and practical issues facing our denomination.
The PCA has enjoyed much growth in recent years while remaining faithful to the Gospel and historic Christian orthodoxy. We also are a “big-tent” denomination including inner city church plants in needy areas, downtown high-churches, suburban mega-churches, country parishes, and everything in between. With such a healthy diversity, obviously our ministers and leaders do not agree on every jot and tittle of theology. That is why our denomination practices “good-faith subscription.” Members and ministers do not have to agree on particular matters that are unclear or commonly disputed in our Confession of Faith.
Many faithful men of God in the PCA are rightfully concerned to protect the purity of the church against threats to the gospel. Unfortunately, though, Presbyterians have an unpleasant track record of infighting, and thus splintering all in the name of “the Gospel.” While we should be eager to protect the purity of the church, we should also be eager to protect the unity of the church.
As the General Assembly meets this week, please pray for our elders and ministers to wisely carryout the business of our denomination in a way that preserves the unity and peace of the PCA.
This week the PCA (our denomination) will meet for its annual General Assembly. Each year Ruling Elders and Teaching Elders from our churches congregate to discuss and deliberate various theological, cultural, and practical issues facing our denomination.
The PCA has enjoyed much growth in recent years while remaining faithful to the Gospel and historic Christian orthodoxy. We also are a “big-tent” denomination including inner city church plants in needy areas, downtown high-churches, suburban mega-churches, country parishes, and everything in between. With such a healthy diversity, obviously our ministers and leaders do not agree on every jot and tittle of theology. That is why our denomination practices “good-faith subscription.” Members and ministers do not have to agree on particular matters that are unclear or commonly disputed in our Confession of Faith.
Many faithful men of God in the PCA are rightfully concerned to protect the purity of the church against threats to the gospel. Unfortunately, though, Presbyterians have an unpleasant track record of infighting, and thus splintering all in the name of “the Gospel.” While we should be eager to protect the purity of the church, we should also be eager to protect the unity of the church.
As the General Assembly meets this week, please pray for our elders and ministers to wisely carryout the business of our denomination in a way that preserves the unity and peace of the PCA.
Hugh Hewitt, whose blog I have plugged several times before, has a fantastic exchange on his site this morning. He hosts a radio show (which, unfortunately is not carried by any local station) and on yesterday’s program he hosted a debate which he called “The Great God Debate.”
On the non-believer side was Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens is an atheist liberal (his latest book is an argument for atheism entitled God is not Great). However, his liberalism is not of the anti-war peacenik kook variety. He is very pro-US in the war and is quite eloquent in his defense of Western Civilization, especially against the threat of Islamofascism. So, even though I don’t agree with him on religion, he’s not, to use Jean Kirpatrick’s formulation, a “blame America first” type.
On the believer side is Mark D. Roberts, whose blog I read occasionally as well. Roberts is the senior pastor of First Pres. in Irvine, CA (Kimberly’s hometown). Despite being PCUSA, he’s very conservative in his theological views, and I would describe him, from what I’ve read, as pretty solidly reformed. He’s got a new book out, which is a defense of the reliability of the Gospels historically, called Can We Trust the Gospels?
Both men debating are extremely bright and articulate, despite how I may disagree with Hitchens. I’ve only made it through the first exchange (the entire transcript covers the three-hour radio show), but it looks like great reading. I recommend it highly. Go here and enjoy!
mir•a•cle (mĭr’ə-kəl)
n. An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God.
While in a hotel recently, I was flipping television channels and landed on the preaching of Joel Osteen. His sermon topic was how to be a miracle in someone’s life. Osteen described how he often buys dinner for people he sees in restaurants, buys shoes for needy kids, and even stopped his car one day to offer his umbrella to some ladies walking in the rain. He described all these acts as being miracles in the recipients’ lives. You and I too can produce miracles in others’ lives, if we simply follow Osteen’s lead. I’d love to spend time discussing how this is a totally inappropriate use of the word “miracle”, but the punch line came later on.
Osteen explained if you want to “get on God’s good side” you will be a giver to others. Get on God’s good side? Is that all it takes? Why in the world did Jesus come to Earth and die the death He did if I can get on God’s good side by simply sharing my umbrella? This sounded so strangely opposite to what Tim preached a few weeks ago. There is nothing wrong with buying dinner for someone…unless I am doing it to get on God’s good side. Then it becomes disgusting. Oh how I wanted to rail on Osteen. I so badly wanted to send him an email listing all the ways his theology was so screwed up – until I remembered the things I do to make God like me. I found myself in a strange place. My blood was boiling over what I heard Osteen say, but I also knew that I still put on my costume and perform to gain God’s approval.
I think I was finally able to sleep when I realized that I truly do not believe I must, or even can, do anything to get on God’s good side. The only reason I am on His good side is because of His unfathomable grace…but I really am there, whether or not I share my umbrella. Yes, I sometimes forget this beautiful reality and try to convince God to accept me. But again, through His grace and mercy, I am reminded that He truly does like me.
I ran across two interesting comments on National Review’s blog, The Corner. Here’s the first, by Mark Krikorian:
The head of the Episcopal Church, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, is complaining about Nigerian Anglican bishops coming to Virginia this weekend to formally install the head of the conservative breakaway denomination in this country. Here's what she said: "Such action would violate the ancient customs of the church."
Then the follow up from Mark Steyn, one of my favorite writers in the commentary business today:
Mark, what’s interesting about the Episcopal breakaway faction in the US is the indestructible assumption of the Presiding Bishop and her colleagues that they are the mainstream and the inevitable progressive future, and that the Nigerian bishops are the fringe and the doomed reactionary past. On any Sunday morning, there are more Anglicans in the pews in Nigeria than in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada combined. So much for head office.
If the Anglican Communion has a future, it won’t be thanks to Bishop Katharine Jefforts Schori and the predictably reductive preoccupations of her ministry.
There’s been a good bit of discussion on this blog recently about the state of modern Christendom. One undeniable fact is that, geographically, the center of gravity in the Christian world is shifting south. Isn’t it interesting that the very folks who were colonized and converted, are the ones to whom it is falling to salvage the wreckage of modern Western Christianity?
Holy Week is almost always the most moving and meaningful time at most churches but last week at Riverwood was especially so for me. First there was the service and sermon on Palm Sunday on the humility of Christ as He approached Jerusalem and His (wonderful!) mission. Then there was the always special Maundy Thursday service, where we take Communion on the night of the first Communion and this year heard of our family, the family of God; and of family meals and family values. Finally, Easter Sunday; Resurrection Day, and Tim spoke of its uniqueness in all of history, the Hinge of History was his sermon title; the most important day in all of history to each of us individually, and it happened two millenia ago. Again we met together at the table of our Lord and celebrated His (and our) triumph over our enemies and over ourselves.
Something that crossed my mind, however, concerned the two Communion services less than three days apart. I hadn’t thought of it earlier even knowing they were planned, but the closeness of the two services didn’t cause any feeling of stale repetition; it had the absolute opposite effect. Looking back on it, there was a sense of hunger for the Sunday Communion that came from the Thursday night service. The sweetness of the one led to anticipation of the other, and I caught myself on Sunday morning yearning for the mystical joy of being fed by the Lord. It was a far different feeling than the usual general forgetfulness that is typical when approaching first Sunday Communion. It is also something I would like very much to maintain in the future because the blessing of it was intense.
I’ve been paying attention to politics pretty much all of my adult life. I cannot remember a presidential campaign season starting so early or having as many doofus candidates as this one. But hey, lots of blogging material, right?
The doofus du jour is John Edwards. Let me supply some background here for readers with better things to do that read about this junk on a daily basis. (I know, it’s a sickness - I should seek treatment.)
Edwards is probably best known politically for being John Kerry’s running mate in 2004. On the stump, he argues that there are “two Americas” - one inhabited by the rich, with all sorts of comforts and luxuries, and the other inhabited by the poor, who endure something like the lives led by the Joads in the Grapes of Wrath to hear Edwards tell it. You can read his campaign’s position on ending poverty ( - really!) here.
He’s got something of a prima donna reputation, though. Rush Limbaugh mockingly refers to him as the Breck girl. (College students and younger: google that, you’ll understand). It’s somewhat deserved, I think. Back in the 2004 campaign, a video surfaced on YouTube of Edwards fixing his hair before some event . It seemed to last an hour. You can see it, if you must, here.
John Edwards is a very wealthy man. He’s a plaintiff’s lawyer, and has made lots of money practicing law. Not knocking it, just pointing out a fact. By reputation, he was quite a good trial lawyer. Recently, he sunk some of his fortune into a new home. It’s 28,000+ square feet. It will be the most highly appraised piece of residential property in the county, according to local officials. You can read about the house (and see pictures of it) here. I suppose we know which of the two Americas he lives in.
Now, this might be bad enough, but to prove to you that I’m not calling Mr. Edwards a doof without just cause, consider his recent comments about how Jesus would view the whole “two Americas” that we have. Here’s an excerpt of his interview with BeliefNet:
What parts of American life do you think would most outrage Jesus?
Our selfishness. Our resort to war when it’s not necessary. I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs. I think he would be appalled, actually.
A Baptist Church in Australia has posted a sign that says “Jesus Loves Osama.”
The full story is here. It has caused enough consternation that the PM of Australia has commented on it.
I have my own reaction to this, but I thought it might be more interesting to hear what the readers/commenters out there had to say. I’ll post my thoughts later.
What say you all?
2/8/07 ADDENDUM: I wanted to add my thoughts to this, now that Tim and Jimmy have so ably commented on the aspects of limited atonement that the sign presents. My impression was really more in line with what PM Howard pointed out. If you assume an Arminian mindset (which, as Tim & Jimmy pointed out, the sign does), then is it not incumbent on the Christian not to do anything to drive the unbeliever away from the Church?
Consider the non-believing family of an Australian soldier killed by the jihadists. What is their reaction to this sign to be? It seems reasonable to me that they react by saying that these church folks care more about the enemy than they do their own countrymen who have fallen at the hand of this enemy. If I were that family, I’d be thinking “so much for Christian compassion” and I’d probably conclude that my instincts that Christians are naive hypocrites were right.
So, in their Arminian world, they’ve alienated all those folks and Osama’s never even seen the silly sign since he’s in a cave somewhere in Pakistan, and is on record anyway as pretty firmly opposed to Christianity. So, even if you assume their worldview (which I don’t) then the sign still doesn’t make any sense.
Every time that I think that the state of the church (the global church, I mean, not Riverwood) can’t get any worse, I read something like this.
It seems that a Church of England congregation in Lincoln, England will be hosting a “U2-charist,” which the article describes as “an adapted Holy Communion service that uses the Irish rock group’s best-selling songs in place of hymns.”
Just about everything that could be wrong about this is. Here are some quotes from the article. I dare anyone to find anything in these remotely touching on the glory of God, the grace of God, Jesus Christ, the Bible, or the Holy Spirit:
-“The event will focus on the Millennium Development Goals - targets set for the alleviation of world poverty”
-“The atmosphere will be further enhanced by a sophisticated lighting system that will pulse with the beat, and striking visual images of poverty and drought.”
-“It is also very important that we continue to try and find ways of worshipping that are surprising, challenging and fun.”
-“Rock music can be a vehicle of immense spirituality.”
-“The Millennium Development Goals are extremely important for the future of the world.”
Now, lest we tut-tut at the sorry state of the Church of England (true as that would be), consider the last line of the article:
“The idea of a “U2-charist” was first created in the US with the first such service held there in 2005.”
On a theological level, I can’t help but believe that this all stems from the contemporary church’s overwhelming rejection of the doctrine of election. After all, if it’s up to man to go out and evangelize and convert the unbelievers, a U2-charist may not be all that far-fetched. After all, it’s easier to recruit with rock songs and snazzy light shows than with the truth about sin, redemption, grace, and the over-arching sovereignty of God. The problem with this approach, though, is that eventually the concert has to end. Then what?
Here’s a great post by a blogger who takes on the Washington Post over its characterization of her church, the Falls Church, which happens to have recently split with the ECUSA. Note that the Post actually manages to call Episcopalians the “frozen chosen.”
Last week Riverwood published a poem in the Reflections page of the bulletin that has fascinated and even haunted me. The poet is Sharon Olds and it can be found in her book, The Gold Cell. It’s title is Alcatraz and is printed below.
Alcatraz
When I was a girl, I knew I was a man
because they might send me to Alcatraz
and only men went to Alcatraz.
Every time we drove to the city I’d
see it there, white as a white
shark in the shark-rich Bay, the bars like
milk-white ribs. I knew I had pushed my
parents too far, my inner badness had
spread like ink and taken me over, I could
not control my terrible thoughts,
terrible looks, and they had often said
that they would send me there-maybe the very next
time I spilled my milk, Ala
Cazam, the iron doors would slam, I’d be
there where I belonged, a girl-faced man in the
prison no one had escaped from. I did not
fear the other prisoners,
I knew who they were, men like me who had
spilled their milk one time too many,
not been able to curb their thoughts—
what I feared was the horror of the circles: circle of
sky around the earth, circle of
land around the Bay, circle of
water around the island, circle of
sharks around the shore, circle of
outer walls, inner walls,
iron girders, steel bars,
circle of my cell around me, and there at the
center, the glass of milk AND the guard’s
eyes upon me as I reached out for it.
My first exposure to this was on my car radio and Garrison Keillor reading it on his Writer’s Almanac program. I rushed to the computer and found it; reading and then hearing it again. I was amazed at the imagery and form, particularly from a poet whose name I did not know; and, if she is secular rather than Christian, the poem really is an amazing document in that it describes a totally Calvinistic view. However, on second thought, the Calvinistic/Christian view is the true view of the human condition, and is certainly accessible to poets.
In the poem, we see a young girl living in San Francisco whose parents tell her that when she does something wrong, does enough wrong, she will be sent to Alcatraz. She is sensitive (a poet to be) and when her parents drive to the city she can see the prison on its island in the bay. She sees herself as a (girl-faced) man, because she knows that she is guilty and only men are punished the way she has been told that she will be punished. The description of her “sins” is so accurate; “inner blackness had spread like ink and taken me over,” “terrible thoughts and terrible looks I could not control.” Then we have the brilliance of the small thing, spilling her milk, and we get the impression that her parents made a very large affair of every sin and shortcoming.
So she goes, in her mind, to Alcatraz. The magic words that send her, “Ala Cazam,” is split between two lines; the magic in the “Ala” and the slam of the iron door almost echoes in the “Cazam.” Here she is with her kind; with the sinners, those who do wrong and there is no fear of them. Her fear is inward, described as a series of ever decreasing circles, until it ends in the circle of the milk glass, and she is watched to see if she spills it. One of the images is the circle of sharks, and the prison itself is white in contrast to the inky badness in her; “a white shark in the shark rich bay.”
This is a very Biblical picture. The “badness” is inside; it is also outside in the tiniest of sins, even in spilling your milk. There is no hope for perfection, no chance to measure up to your “parents” standard. The poem doesn’t address the answer, and rightly so; it is not a religious tract and would lose the power of its picture, but we, trapped in our circles, inside ourselves; knowing of our sin as she knows of her sin, have the Gospel and have redemption. We are the ones who will escape from the place “no one has ever escaped from.” We will never be trapped in the circle of sharks and the circle of ourselves and our guilt, but have been freed.
I ran across this article by Mark Steyn, who I believe is one of the best opinion writers in the business. What I found fascinating about it was the quote from the newly installed presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church USA, Katharine Jefferts Schori. The original is on the NYT’s paid site, but here’s Steyn’s write-up, including the bishop’s quote:
Bishop Kate gave an interview to the New York Times revealing what passes for orthodoxy in this most flexible of faiths. She was asked a simple enough question: “How many members of the Episcopal Church are there?”
“About 2.2 million,” replied the presiding bishop. “It used to be larger percentage-wise, but Episcopalians tend to be better educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than other denominations.”
This was a bit of a jaw-dropper even for a New York Times hackette, so, with vague memories of God saying something about going forth and multiplying floating around the back of her head, a bewildered Deborah Solomon said: “Episcopalians aren’t interested in replenishing their ranks by having children?”
“No,” agreed Bishop Kate. “It’s probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion.”
Wow. I’ll leave aside for a moment the incredible arrogance of that statement and concentrate on its substantive implications. For a long time, I have thought that the ECUSA’s train was off the tracks, but I had no idea that it had come to this. It’s bad enough to completely abandon everything that your church has stood for theologically in some misguided attempt to curry favor with the sundry liberal interest groups (read: the world). However, consciously deciding to commit demographic suicide in the name of saving the planet is, well, just plain old crazy.
The argument has been made that political liberals (and states with higher concentrations of them) have lower fertility rates and political conservatives (and their states) have higher fertility rates. Given the bishop’s comments, perhaps this trend extends to liberal and conservative Christianity too.
In my view, this is a sad, sad commentary on the state of mainline Christianity. In Tim’s sermon a couple of weeks ago, he said that God was terrible, but good. My perception is that liberal Christians, who believe that God is the exact opposite - some kindly celestial grandfather, but detached, uninvolved, and maybe even powerless over what happens on earth - don’t really want to bring children into the world as they see it. Those who hold to the terrible/good view, though, have less (or no) problem with this because they believe God’s promises, made to them and to their children - and that He has the power and the desire to carry those promises out.
Assume for a moment that the bishop’s comments are predictive of the demographic future of liberal mainline protestantism. Now apply a Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest analysis to the overall protestant church in the US. If those that are reproducing hold to a more orthodox Christianity and those who fail to reproduce are theological liberals, given that the liberal mainline denominations aren’t adding members from the outside, what is the long-term viability of the mainline protestant denominations in the US?
This morning at 7 AM I was on the RiverWalk with two excited Shelties, walking northeast toward the morning directly beside the Warrior River. It was partly sunny, cool, and absolutely glorious; with the river running strongly to the southwest, the wind rippling it, and the trees in Fall colors. As is usually the case on Monday, I was considering the previous Sunday worship as I walked, since the walk has become an occasional prayer and devotion time. Because of the beautiful installation service on Sunday evening, there was a lot to consider.
Tim had preached in Philippians 3; “Expatriates in the Land of the Belly God,” and had spoken of Christians being set apart and living for different goals than those who lived for a materialistic filling of appetites. Dr. Kay preached from Mark 16 on Christ’s ascension, and on how our future, as God’s children, was being prepared for us even now by the Savior. Then Kevin Ball, in a remarkble few minutes, gave Tim and the Congregation their respective charge from Malachi 3. He spoke of the proud and arrogant, who spoke out against God and said that they had nothing to gain by worshipping Him and how they seemed to proper. He then spoke of the believers of his day who feared the Lord and who joined together to worship and honor Him. A “scroll of Rememberance” was made by them in the presence of the Lord. Of these, God said that He would make them His “treasured possession” in the day of judgment and that men would again see the difference “between those who serve God and those who don’t.” His charge was that when our church wasn’t perfect, Tim was to remember that we were God’s treasured possession; and that when Tim wasn’t perfect, the Church was to remember that he and his family were God’s treasured possession. Kevin’s charge and Tim’s sermon were on much the same theme and I contemplated this on my walk.
About that time, the wind rose and the tops of the trees began to move and we were suddenly standing in a rain of golden leaves as the wind loosened them and swirled them around us. The dogs stood looking, almost rapt, it seemed, at the beauty of the leaves falling around us with the sun shining through them in the woods by the river. I was certainly enraptured with this coming on thoughts of our worship.
It lasted several minutes, and when the wind died down again, I considered my estate, my status in the great scheme of things. God has given to me knowledge of Him; both in worship and in the river and the wind. He has given me a wife that I love, my very own “treasured possession.” He has given me children, godly friends, and a “family” in Him at Riverwood, a place that holds Him and His Gospel sacred and holy. But most of all, I know that I am His very own “treasured possession,” that the God of all things and all creation knows me and cherishes me; which is surely the most incredible fact in all of history. It is a high status indeed. Standing there, in that moment, I fully understood the peace Paul spoke of ” that transcends all understanding.”
There’s a Bette Middler song by that title that suggests that God is merely watching what we’re doing down here on earth “from a distance.” (Bryan Bond, are you out there?)
Apparently, according to a recent Harris Poll, that’s the most prevalent belief among Americans about what God does. 44% agreed with that view, whereas only 29% believed that God controls events on Earth.
There are some other disturbing findings in the poll, reflecting the sorry state of the Church today. And though I think it’s indisputable that the Church is doing an abysmal job of educating its members (or even knowing what it stands for), and needs to do much, much, better, that’s really nothing new, is it? After all, the people God has chosen have always wandered. I’m reminded about God’s telling Hosea to go and take an adulterous wife (See Hosea 1) as an illustration of this.
It also reminds me of Jimmy’s excellent post yesterday. God really does choose the unlovely, low, and unexpected to be His, be it a tiny nothing of a planet in the vastness of the universe, or an unfaithful, wrong-headed, and disbelieving Church.
In the extraordinary Sunday School series now playing at Riverwood, Faith and Science, Bob Thornton and Allen Powers spoke of the time in which it was proven that the universe didn’t revolve around the earth, as the religious dogma of the day believed. In fact, science now speaks of the complete insignificance of the earth; a dot of protoplasm swimming in the Pacific Ocean. Science says that there are probably many earths which support life, and the entertainment world has certainly bought into this idea, from Superman to Star Wars to the X-Files. Even C. S. Lewis conceded this possibility with his space series but indicated that, if they exist, God created them for His own glory even as He did our earth. Recently I came across a fantastic picture from the NASA web site that would seem to indicate the rather pitiful insignificance of the earth in the vast oceans of space.
This is a picture of an eclispe of the Sun by Saturn. It was taken from the Cassini space probe and it outlines the incredible beauty of the rings. As beautiful as it is (“The heavens declare the Glory of God”, I thought); one of the most interesting things about it is that it is a view of earth from behind Saturn. Look closely at the upper left outer ring of Saturn and you will see an infintesimal little light blue dot. This is our earth that Christians believe was created by God and upon whom live His chosen people. It could not possibility be more insignificant, could it?
The truth is that the world really is the center of the universe, the reason for its existence. No, the universe doesn’t physically revolve around the earth, as was believed in the Dark Ages, but the ordered beauty of the heavens does exist because the earth exists. And the earth exists because God conceived of and created it as a platform for our existence. If you are a Christian, the smallness of the earth in the vastness of the universe is a matter of joy and delight. It speaks of our importance, His people’s importance, in His eyes. This is the God who “Chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; the weak to shame the strong; the lowly, the despised, the things that are not to shame the things that are.” Man has determined the vastness and the power of the universe, and despises the lowliness of the earth and the God that made it; and yet this claim will also be shamed.
In his book, “Orthodoxy,” G.K. Chesterton ends with the idea that God has hidden something that He hasn’t revealed in any place. He revealed many things through Jesus’ incarnation but hid this from our view. Chesterton wonders if the hidden thing wasn’t God’s mirth. If Chesterton is right, this idea, a source of pride to men who think they understand; this idea of the unimportance of earth and of man almost appears to be a manifestation of God’s mirth.
There are many of you that know that I am currently preaching through the epistle of Philippians. A condensed summary of Saint Paul’s letter can be expressed with, “joy in suffering.” To accompany my sermons with illustrations, I started reading Elie Wiesel’s trilogy about the Jewish Holocaust during WWII. “Certainly,” I thought, “these horrific accounts will supply my need for illustrations that depict true suffering.” This past week I finally finished the third installment. (Book 1: Night, Book 2: Dawn, Book 3: The Accident)
As I was reading Night, I noticed that I had a wincing expectation for the graphic and horrible. I knew the Nazi concentration camps were ghastly libraries of sordid stories—I just needed solid facts, names, and eyewitness accounts to confirm this. All of the stories made me sick, sad, and angry. But I knew they would.
Nothing, however, prepared me for the hollow aching void I felt after I finished The Accident. It is a cruel, hopeless, and penetrating observation into the soul of man. Wiesel’s desperation with humanity, the inaction/non-existence of God, and final observations of meaning in the midst of depravity—lead him to a restrained and minimal hedonism found in friendship and “lies that breed true happiness.”
But the haunting of Wiesel is what haunted me after I had closed the cover. He writes that the survivors of the holocaust did not use their freedom to punish and hate the Germans. Rather, these “living dead,” who could show no capacity for truly living, were more saturated with the guilt, shame, and debasement that occurred within their own souls. They were consumed with self-hatred for every act they performed to protect their own lives. Wiesel mercilessly and accurately reveals the internal state of every “normal” human being. (And not the sadistic victimizer, but the victim!) And then he stops. No solutions. He offers only philosophical silence.
The lingering effects of Wiesel’s trilogy have been brutally helpful, in that, I have been reflecting long on the nature of my own heart. Of course, I have heard it said: “We are no different from Hitler, save the blood of Christ.” But embedded in those self-effacing statements is the assumption that we, too, are capable of atrocities given the same circumstances. However, Wiesel coldly and consistently points out that the human heart is the same under normal, urbane, educated, and cosmopolitan influences. The acts that were constantly relived with cold sweats and nightmares came from quiet, peaceful, small-town people. In other words they came from me, you, and the sweet lady up the street. And this is where Wiesel’s scathing blade cuts the deepest, leaving little hope for humanity and even less for life.
But as a believer in Christ as Messiah, I think that this is precisely where the Gospel is given any incredulous magnitude: when we see the great depths of the human capacity to manifest evil, while simultaneously seeing the hope granted by Christ to make us clean. Being able to say to the man who beat an old man to death for a piece of bread: “Believe, and you are righteous” To the men who pitched babies into the air for Nazi target practice: “Believe, and you are righteous.” To the man who wrung his own crying baby’s head off to protect his family from being discovered: “Believe, and you are righteous—your sins are no more.” To the girls tortured as sex slaves at the age of 12: “Believe, you are clean, virginal, and righteous.”
One of the frequent themes that I hear in the preaching at Riverwood is our identity as Christians. Refreshingly, yesterday, the pope even got in on the act, urging Christians not to give up their unique identity for the sake of dialogue with other religions, which Reuters obligingly reads as Muslims.
This story both heartened and depressed me. On the one hand, it is a good thing to see the pope take such a stand. On the other hand, what a shame that any Christian thinks it necessary to give up our unique identity to engage the world and the adherents of other religions.
Undoubtedly, there is a political and theological angle to this. Many liberal theologians and liberal politicans believe that orthodox Christians’ claim to exclusivity of salvation is dangerous and arrogant.
It reminded me of an article that I read in USA Today a while back about three women, one Jew, one Christian, and one Muslim, who came together to discuss their various faiths. They called it the Faith Club, and wrote a book about it. The full article is here.
What got me was the quote at the end:
For anyone who reads the Quran or the Bible literally, rather than metaphorically or in cultural context, the women say, their views will be too liberal. For people who believe there is exactly one way to one heaven, described and delineated only by their own faith, The Faith Club may not offer a template.
Yet to them, the women all offer a quote from Idliby’s imam, the prayer leader where she worships: “There is no temporal judge of faith on this earth.”
When Jesus Christ says that no one comes to the Father except through Him, I don’t know how to take that metaphorically or in cultural context. Moreover, there’s no reason that any Christian should take it at other than face value. After all, it’s pretty clear.
It’s good to see that this pope may not fall into the “Faith Club” muddle.
I’ve been thinking for awhile about the Fox News Channel Reporter, Steve Centanni, and his cameraman, Olaf Wiig, who were captured in Gaza a few weeks ago. Thankfully, they were eventually released. What has been on my mind is the way that they were forced to convert to Islam prior to their release, and the fact that this “conversion” was videotaped and released to the world. You can still see it on YouTube here.
I began to write this entry a few days ago with the idea that we in the West really don’t understand the nature of our enemies. However, I scrapped that entry and rewrote it because what we really don’t understand is ourselves and our fundamental natures.
I was puzzled that no one seemed bothered by these men’s forced conversions. A friend at work explained that this was because everyone knew it was fake. My friend is exactly correct. In point of fact, the kidnappers knew it was fake too. So why go through the bother?
Because Islam is a religion of works, not grace. In their theological world, converting at the point of the sword, no matter how insincere it may be, earns you religious brownie points. We look at the video and shrug it off as silly propaganda. What we in the West fail to understand (not simply acknowledge; I mean truly internalize) is that for radical Islamists, earning your way into heaven is a deadly serious business.
So why don’t we get it? I believe that we don’t get it because we can’t comprehend someone believing that forcing conversions at gunpoint or killing infidels earns you any favors from God. We in the Christian (or worse, post-modern) West can’t grasp that anyone would be that depraved. And that’s really the problem, isn’t it? We can’t believe that the enemy is that bad, because we really don’t believe that we’re that bad.
Hugh Hewitt is one of my favorite bloggers to read. He asserts this morning that the country, or at least certain parts of it, are profoundly morally confused regarding the decision by Harvard, the University of Virginia, and others to invite former Iranian president Khatami to speak. Now, I agree with Prof. Hewitt that this is tremendously wrong-headed and, indeed, morally confused. Sad to say, though, that I don’t find this terribly surprising for these big-name universities today. I almost expected as much, since academia seems to have long ago driven off the cliff of moral relativism.
However, what really shocked me was when I learned that Khatami will also be speaking at the National Cathedral. According to the Washington Times, his speech will focus “on how the three ‘Abrahamaic faiths’ — Christianity, Judaism and Islam — can work together for a Middle East peace.” Lest anyone doubt Khatami’s real views, according to the Harvard Crimson,
Khatami has criticized Israel in the past and once called it an “illegal state” and a “parasite in the heart of the Muslim world,” according to newspaper accounts from 2000 and 2001.
I’m really having a kind of a Bob Dole moment about this - where’s the outrage? I haven’t heard anything about this until I read it on Hewitt’s blog this morning. Does no one care? The National Cathedral is part of the Episcopal Church USA. Is it just that no one expects different from ECUSA, given their well-publicized liberalism?
There seems to be one person who does get it, though. The governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, a presidential aspirant, has ordered the state not to provide any security services for his visit. Good for him. It really does seem, though, that those who are “morally confused” greatly outnumber those who are not.
I saw an entry on the Drudge Report yesterday that Warren Buffett had married his “companion” of decades. Apparently, even though he separated from his wife back in the seventies, they remained married until she died a couple of years ago.
I thought this was an unconventional arrangement, and it made me think of Buffett’s recent pledge to donate billions of dollars to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. All this made me wonder about Buffett’s religion. A quick Google search reveals quite a few sources claiming that Buffett is an agnostic, as is Gates.
What I found strange was this comment from Buffett upon announcing his gift: “There is more than one way to get to heaven, but this is a great way.” Now why is an agnostic so sure about how to get into heaven? How does an agnostic even know that such a thing exists?
This brought yet another thought. Warren Buffett opposes the repeal of the estate tax, and refuses to leave more than 10% of his fortune to his children, substituting the Gates foundation instead.
This seems to me further proof of the principle that if man does not have the work of Christ as his justification with God, human nature will seek something else to go in its place. Buffett doesn’t just blow it all on stuff (like yachts or mansions), he makes a major press announcement about giving it away to a charity. He even outright states that this will definitely get him into heaven. Why is this the ticket in, and not leaving it to his kids? Do people who leave inheritances to their children not get into heaven? For someone who opposes the repeal of the estate tax (full disclosure: I support repeal), making such a large charitable donation will assure that he pays almost no estate tax. Would letting 45% of his fortune (maybe $20 billion in rough numbers) go to Uncle Sam get him into heaven?
I do not have $40 billion to hand to Bill & Melinda Gates to do who-knows-what with. I wonder what Mr. Buffet would advise me to do.
The New York Times this weekend published an article about women in the clergy and, more specifically, how few women lead large congregations. They call it the “stained glass ceiling.” The full text of the article is here:
The Rev. Dottie Escobedo-Frank, pastor of Crossroads United Methodist Church in Phoenix, is quoted in the article saying, “I speak differently than a man does … To hear the fullness of God’s voice, you need to hear both men and women.”
What an amazing statement. I read stuff like this and find myself yelling at the screen “Um, the Bible? Hello?” The implication here is that God’s revelation is ongoing and incomplete, and, indeed, can’t be complete until all the quotas are filled. It really is shocking how far from the authority of scripture modern American Christianity is straying.
I have always thought that praying for healing of the sick was necessary but needed to be done in a particular way that addressed the omnipotence of God. What we see in the “healing” services on television and, I’m sure, in certain churches, is an emphasis on results based on superior spirituality that almost “forces” God to do something, and on self indulgent rhetoric. While I’m certainly not advocating prewritten or canned prayers, I thought this prayer for the sick from www.catholic.org addressed the proper issues:
Dear Jesus, Divine Physician and Healer of the sick, we turn to you in this time of illness. O dearest comforter of the troubled, alleviate our worry and sorrow with your gentle love, and grant us the grace and strength to accept this burden. Dear God, we place our worries in your hands. We place our sick under your care and humbly ask that you restore your servant to health again. Above all, grant us the grace to acknowledge your will and know that whatever you do, you do for the love of us. Amen.
In it, there is humility, dependence, a plea for strength to deal with the situation, and acknowledgment of God’s will in all things, as well as the desire for healing. All of which seems to me to be what we should pray for in times of illness, even illness unto death.
Newsweek recently published an article about the power and new popularity of “hip-hop” masses or “hip-hop services” for youth and the urban sub-culture. (Newsweek, July 31, 2006, “BeliefWatch: ‘Word’”) One pastor even created the Hip Hop Prayer book, inspired by the Book of Common Prayer. After recognizing that this would create controversy with some, the article ended like this:
“But proponents argue that using vernacular language in services is a way to draw young people to church. Everyone’s down with that.”
Aside from populating the pew, there were no other reasons given for why this approach would seem profitable. Understanding the Bible was not a real concern. The article also printed the “hip-hop” version of Psalm 23, by way of example. I’ve used the actual words from the article below, and I’ve added the New American Standard (NAS) and the New International Version (NIV) in an interlinear format:
Bible translation is a fascinating and complex discipline. And the debates for proper methodology are more heated than many realize. (In other words, this may only be interesting to geeks like me.) The King James camp, fiercely contends that their Bible is superior due to the sheer amount of manuscripts that support their translation. The NAS boasts that their translation is the most “literal” and “wooden,” while the NIV uses the phrase “dynamic equivalent” to describe their own translation. Example: To describe Saul using the bathroom, the NAS will transliterate the ancient idiom and render the phrase, “Saul covered his knees,” meanwhile the NIV will convert the ancient idiom into a modern or “dynamic” equivalent by translating the same thing as “Saul relieved himself.”
Enter the Hip Hop Prayer Book. I am not really concerned with variances in vernacular or even foreign words. I cannot expect the fluidity of linguistics and language to scare me into demanding a static translation. What does concern me, however, is the meaning of words. Faithful Bible translation is far more difficult than exclusively highlighting your modern context. It is imperative, necessary, and paramount that the original context of the writing is understood, as well. Failure to understand both, results in a sloppy, misleading translation. My critique of the Hip Hop Psalm 23 does not, I repeat, does not, include a negative reaction to words that I don’t often employ myself. My main concern is that responsible translation has taken place. And I would also argue that the translator, in this instance, has been far from careful or meticulous.
I will only highlight two, but there are more. Compare “The Lord is all that,” with “The Lord is my Shepherd.” This is an irresponsible translation. If “all that” is an adjective that means: “in possession of all good qualities,” (or some close approximation), then this is not the meaning. Although it would have made me cringe, I might have accepted “Coach.”
And finally, compare “He provides back-up in front of player-haters,” with “You prepare a table before me, in the presence of my enemies.” “Back-up” refers to “an ally that is prepared to assist you in a time of violence or peril.” (my definition) However, the Psalmist is actually describing a Great Benefactor that is bestowing blessing, honor, and publicly raising us in full view of those who would have us brought low. Additionally, “player-hater” insinuates that God’s people are really a bunch of smooth swingin’ cats that have great skills in conquering the opposite sex.
And, yes, I do hope that all of you fall back in the Lord’s crib for the rest of your lives.
I purchased a few books from St. Matthews recently. Among them was Evangelical Theology by A. A. Hodge. I found this quote while reading a section on the Lord’s Supper:
Whosoever puts away true and real wine, or fermented grape juice, on moral grounds, from the Lord’s Supper, sets himself up as more moral than the Son of God who reigns over his conscience, and than the Saviour of souls who redeemed him. There has been absolutely universal consent on this subject in the Christian Church until modern times, when the practice has been opposed, not upon change of evidence, but solely on prudential considerations. Many Christians have, however, mingled water with the wine because it was an ancient custom probably practiced by Christ himself, and also by some because water mingled with the blood flowed from his broken heart (John xix. 34)
I thought the first part of the quote was interesting, because, growing up in the south, alcohol, in any form, is so frowned upon. Most churches I know, or have been a part of, use Welches® for communion (I’ve heard the story of how the Methodists created Welches specifically for communion). I was happy to find St Matthews uses port.
The second part of the quote explains something else I had noticed at St Matthews, and that is the adding of a little water to the wine. I enjoy learning the significance of various parts of the liturgy.
I have been reading N.T. Wright’s book Following Jesus recently, and I ran across this gem (there were plenty others):
The Church, ironically, has usually lurched between the two options which Jesus refused in Gethsemane. There have been times when it has been a crusading Church, turning the sword of the gospel into the gospel of the sword, thinking to spread the kingdom of love by the weapons of hatred. God forgive us that we have turned the cross, the great symbol of suffering love, into a symbol which some in the world still have cause to fear. Then there have been times when the Church has withdrawn, has retreated into the private sphere, has thought of its religion as purely a matter between the individual and God, or at best between the Church and God, with nothing to say to the rest of the world. This may sometimes have been a necessary corrective against the crusading arrogance of the first option, but its is not the way of the Servant King.
Beeson is having a “pastors school” July 19-23; here’s a PDF of the brochure. Roger Salter has a workshop titled John Donne: The St. Augustine of Anglicanism. Sounds interesting. I wish I could attend. I’m hoping to get a copy of the audio if nothing else.
Posted by Steven Crawford at 12:19 AM Link to entry
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I ran across this interesting article regarding the church’s choice for the date we celebrate Christmas. The story is at Touchstone Magazine. I’ve read a few other interesting articles there.
Posted by Steven Crawford at 07:25 AM Link to entry
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